Viruses of the Flaviviridae family include at least three distinguishable genera including pestiviruses, flaviviruses, and hepaciviruses (Calisher, et al., J. Gen. Virol., 1993, 70, 37-43). While pestiviruses cause many economically important animal diseases such as bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV), classical swine fever virus (CSFV, hog cholera) and border disease of sheep (BDV), their importance in human disease is less well characterized (Moennig, V., et al., Adv. Vir. Res. 1992, 48, 53-98). Flaviviruses are responsible for important human diseases such as dengue fever and yellow fever while hepaciviruses cause hepatitis C virus infections in humans. Other important viral infections caused by the Flaviviridae family include West Nile virus (WNV) Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV), tick-borne encephalitis virus, Junjin virus, Murray Valley encephalitis, St Louis enchaplitis, Omsk hemorrhagic fever virus and Zika virus.
Hepaciviridae include the hepatitis C virus (HCV) which is the leading cause of chronic liver disease worldwide (Boyer, N. et al. J. Hepatol. 32:98-112, 2000), so a significant focus of current antiviral research is directed toward the development of improved methods of treatment of chronic HCV infections in humans (Di Besceglie, A. M. and Bacon, B. R., Scientific American, Oct.: 80-85, (1999); Gordon, C. P., et al., J. Med. Chem. 2005, 48, 1-20; Maradpour, D.; et al., Nat. Rev. Micro. 2007, 5(6), 453-463). A number of HCV treatments are reviewed by Bymock et al. in Antiviral Chemistry & Chemotherapy, 11:2; 79-95 (2000). Virologic cures of patients with chronic HCV infection are difficult to achieve because of the prodigious amount of daily virus production in chronically infected patients and the high spontaneous mutability of HCV virus (Neumann, et al., Science 1998, 282, 103-7; Fukimoto, et al., Hepatology, 1996, 24, 1351-4; Domingo, et al., Gene, 1985, 40, 1-8; Martell, et al., J. Virol. 1992, 66, 3225-9.
Currently, there are primarily two antiviral compounds, ribavirin, a nucleoside analog, and interferon-alpha (α) (IFN), that are used for the treatment of chronic HCV infections in humans. Ribavirin alone is not effective in reducing viral RNA levels, has significant toxicity, and is known to induce anemia. The combination of IFN and ribavirin has been reported to be effective in the management of chronic hepatitis C (Scott, L. J., et al. Drugs 2002, 62, 507-556) but less than half the patients given this treatment show a persistent benefit.
Combined, infections from the Flaviviridae virus family cause significant mortality, morbidity and economic losses throughout the world. Therefore, there remains a need to develop effective treatments for Flaviviridae virus infections. The present invention relates to novel substituted heterocycles, processes for their preparation, their use to treat viral infections and their use to manufacture a medicine to treat viral infections, particularly infections with viruses belonging to the family of the Flaviviridae and more preferably infections with hepatitis-C-virus (HCV).